Methods of persuasion how to use psychology to influence human behavior kolenda, nick

Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Preface Introduction Step 1: Mold Their Perception Chapter 1: Prime Their Mindset Chapter 2: Anchor Their Perception Chapter 3: Convey High Expectations

Methods of Persuasion: How to Use Psychology to Influence Human Behavior

Copyright 2013 © Kolenda Entertainment, LLC

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

Step 1: Mold Their Perception

Chapter 1: Prime Their Mindset

Chapter 2: Anchor Their Perception

Chapter 3: Convey High Expectations

Step 2: Elicit Congruent Attitudes

Chapter 4: Control Body Language

Chapter 5: Create Behavioral Consistency

Step 3: Trigger Social Pressure

Chapter 6: Emphasize Social Norms

Chapter 7: Reveal Any Similarities

Step 4: Habituate Your Message

Chapter 8: Use Repeated Exposures

Chapter 9: Desensitize Negative Messages

Step 5: Optimize Your Message

Chapter 10: Alter Their Evaluation

Chapter 11: Tweak Your Message

Step 6: Drive Their Momentum

Chapter 12: Provide Proper Incentives

Chapter 13: Motivate Through Limitations

Step 7: Sustain Their Compliance

Chapter 14: Make Favorable Associations

Putting It All Together

References

Accordingly, I’d like to acknowledge all of the researchers who are helping to further our

understanding of human behavior In particular, I want to acknowledge the researchers whose worksparked my own interest in this pursuit: Robert Cialdini, Daniel Kahneman, Dan Ariely, John Bargh,Gavan Fitzsimons, Richard Petty, John Cacioppo, Leon Festinger, Ap Dijskterhuis, and the list goes

on Your work is truly revolutionary, and you deserve the utmost recognition and praise

Let me guess You skipped over the Acknowledgments and came directly to the Preface, right? Most

people do If you are among that majority, go back and read the Acknowledgments, and then come

back here

Are you back? Great My name is Nick Kolenda, and I’ve been a professional mind reader for 10years Do I have supernatural powers? Nope Just a pretty good knack at reading people andinfluencing their thoughts

As a mind reader, I’ve structured my entire performance around the concept of psychologicalinfluence, and over the course of 10 years, I developed a unique method to unconsciously influencepeople’s thoughts Where does the “mind reading” come into play? Because those people areunaware that I influenced their thoughts, I can reveal the thought that I implanted and, essentially,

“read their mind.” I’ve always kept my method hidden, but this book finally reveals that explanation(and the psychology behind why it works)

But this book stems far beyond that one mind reading application Not only will Methods of Persuasion teach you how to influence people’s thoughts, but it will also teach you how to use

psychology to control their behavior In addition to my unique background as a mind reader, I alsohave an educational background in persuasion through my degrees in marketing and psychology.While in college, I became obsessed with finding the psychological forces that guide human behavior,and although most people can barely make it through one scholarly article, I sifted through hundreds—

if not thousands—of academic journal articles, trying to pinpoint proven principles that guide ourbehavior

In my pursuit, I discovered several psychological forces that exert an incredibly powerful influence

on our behavior These principles are so pervasive and ingrained within us that they guide ourbehavior every day without our conscious awareness More importantly, if you know how to alterthose forces, you can use them to guide people’s behavior

This book will teach you those principles and more

Best wishes,

Nick Kolenda

October, 2013

Because of my peculiar background as a mind reader and psychology researcher, the book thatyou’re holding is pretty unique But there’s one particular distinction that makes it especially differentfrom other books on persuasion Most persuasion books simply list an arsenal of tactics that you canuse at your disposal; however, the persuasion methods in this book have been strategically arrangedinto a chronological seven-step process If you need to persuade someone to perform a specific task,you can follow the exact steps described in this book to achieve your goal Although you can still pickand choose the persuasion tactics that you want to implement, this step-by-step guide will get youheaded in the right direction.

Conveniently, this step-by-step persuasion process follows the acronym METHODS (do you getthe book title’s double entendre?) The overall steps in METHODS include:

Step 1: Mold Their Perception

Step 2: Elicit Congruent Attitudes

Step 3: Trigger Social Pressure

Step 4: Habituate Your Message

Step 5: Optimize Your Message

Step 6: Drive Their Momentum

Step 7: Sustain Their Compliance

It might seem like a simple list, but the amount of psychology literature that I scoured to produce thatlist is mind-numbing (feel free to take a gander at the list of references at the end of the book)

Part of my goal in writing this book was to make it the book in your collection with the mosthighlighting You won’t find any long-winded explanations, irrelevant anecdotes, or any other type of

“fluff” because I’ve tried to make everything as direct and straight to the point as possible (while stillmaking the book interesting and engaging to read)

Last-Minute Background Info Before jumping straight to the first step in METHODS, there’s some

last-minute background information that can help you gain the most from reading this book

Persuasion Is Not Manipulation The term “manipulation” generally refers to a malicious attempt to

influence another person through questionable or blatantly unethical tactics (e.g., lying and deceit).The term “persuasion” is sometimes grouped with “manipulation,” which is very unfortunate becausethe two terms represent very different ideas

The tactics in this book are neither ethical nor unethical; how you use these tactics will determine

that outcome Although it’s not my job to “persuade” you to adopt a moral outlook, I wholeheartedlyoppose anyone who tries to use these tactics to manipulate people The principles in this book can bevery powerful, and I urge everyone to use them with proper care and concern for other people You

should never try to persuade people to perform actions if you know that those actions are not in theirbest interest.

Definitions In this book, I’ll use the term “target” when referring to the person(s) that you’re trying to

persuade For example, if you’re trying to persuade a coworker to write you a recommendation, yourcoworker would be your “target” (you should also note that I will randomly alternate between using

“he” and “she” pronouns when referring to a hypothetical person)

I’ll also use the term “request” when you’re trying to persuade someone to perform a specificbehavior (e.g., to write a recommendation), and I’ll use the term “message” when referring to themedium that you use for persuasion (e.g., an e-mail to your coworker) But both terms will be usedmore or less interchangeably

Lastly, most of the techniques in this book exert a “nonconscious” influence, meaning that peoplewill be unaware that those principles are guiding their behavior In writing this book, I chose to usethe word “nonconscious” because the terms “subconscious” and “unconscious” have a connotationthat there’s some part of our brain responsible for unconscious processes (which isn’t the case) Theterm “nonconscious” seems more accurate because it makes no such claim; it just refers to everythingthat occurs outside of our awareness

Structure of Chapters The book is divided into seven parts, with each part representing a step in the

METHODS process Each of those seven parts will contain several chapters that explain a relevantpsychological principle that you can use to accomplish the overarching step

Every chapter in this book shares a similar structure I’ll first describe the background of theprinciple and how it exerts its influence in our daily lives Next, I’ll describe the psychology research

to explain why that principle is so powerful Lastly, each chapter will end with various examplestrategies to apply that principle toward persuasion

If I’m so committed to being clear and concise, why am I bothering to teach the underlyingpsychology? Why not focus solely on the applications? There are two main reasons First, by citingthe research to support the principle, I’m hoping that you can gain an appreciation for theeffectiveness of each application Second, and more importantly, in order to take full advantage of the

how, you need to understand the why Once you understand the underlying psychology, you can start to

move beyond the example techniques that I describe, and you can start to brainstorm your ownpersuasion applications and strategies It’s like the Chinese proverb: Give a man a fish and you feedhim for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime

STEP 1

Mold Their Perception

OVERVIEW: MOLD THEIR PERCEPTION

Reality is objective, but our perception of reality is subjective What the heck does that mean? Eventhough there’s only one reality surrounding us, people perceive and interpret that reality differently.Essentially, our perception is a lens through which we interpret reality; if you know how to alter thatlens, you can change how people view and interpret reality

That notion leads to the most common error in persuasion When people need to persuade someone

to comply with a request, they usually jump straight to the request without devoting attention topossible strategies leading up to that request People start relentlessly hammering away, trying toextract their target’s compliance, unbeknownst to them that they could have used a few psychologicaltactics to change how their target would perceive their request

Accordingly, the chapters in this first step will teach you how to alter the lens through whichpeople perceive the world around them, and you’ll learn how to mold their perception so that itbecomes more conducive to your situation Once you alter that lens, any additional persuasion tacticswill become much more powerful and effective because of their new perception The first chapterstarts by describing one of the most important factors that dictates our perception: our currentmindset

CHAPTER 1

Prime Their Mindset

It might seem like an odd request, but think of a lucky dwarf Are you thinking of one? Good Now gowith your immediate gut reaction and think of a number between one and ten Quick! Stick with thefirst number that pops inside your head, and don’t change your mind

Are you thinking of a number? Although it’s far from foolproof, you were more likely to think of the

number seven And if you are thinking of seven and you’re somewhat freaked out, rest assured, this

chapter will explain the psychological principle behind that phenomenon Specifically, you’ll learnwhy imagining that “lucky dwarf” made you more likely to think of the number seven, and you’ll learnpractical techniques to apply that underlying principle in your own life (don’t worry, you won’t beasking people to think about dwarves, I promise)

THE POWER OF MINDSETS

Before I explain the exercise with the dwarf, let’s try something else This time, think of your mother.Let that image of good ol’ mum simmer for a second or two, and then let it fade away

Now, read the following blurb about Mark and mentally rate his level of motivation on a scalefrom one to nine (1 = low motivation, 9 = high motivation):

Mark is just entering his second year of college In his first year, he did very well in someclasses but not as well in others Although he missed some morning classes, overall he hadvery good attendance His parents are both doctors, and he is registered in pre-med, but hehasn’t really decided if that is what he wants to do (Fitzsimons & Bargh, 2003, p 153)

Do you have your rating? As you might have judged, all of the information about Mark in that passagewas completely ambiguous; in other words, that information could be perceived either positively ornegatively Researchers presented that ambiguous blurb to people to examine how their perception ofMark would change depending on their mindset

To instill a certain mindset in their participants, the researchers asked people beforehand tocomplete an “unrelated” questionnaire Some people completed a questionnaire about their bestfriend, whereas other people completed a questionnaire about their mother

Do you still remember the rating that you gave Mark? The people in the study who filled out thebest friend questionnaire gave an average rating of 5.56 for Mark’s level of motivation Was yourrating higher? According to the results, people who filled out the questionnaire about their motherviewed Mark to be significantly more motivated (Fitzsimons & Bargh, 2003)

Why did people perceive Mark differently depending on the questionnaire? Since nothing in theblurb changed, logic suggests that both groups should have given Mark the same rating What was sopowerful about the mother questionnaire that altered people’s perception of him?

In general, people associate motivation and striving toward success more with their mothers thanwith their best friends Because one of the driving forces behind many people’s pursuit towardsuccess is a desire to make their mom proud, the concept of motivation became activated and more

prevalent for people who completed the questionnaire about their mother Although the objectivereality in front of them remained the same (i.e., the blurb was the same for each group), the idea of

“mother” became a lens through which people perceived that ambiguous blurb The next section willexplain why that’s the case, and you’ll also learn why a “lucky dwarf” can make people predisposed

to think of the number seven

WHY ARE MINDSETS SO POWERFUL?

To understand why mindsets are so powerful, you need to understand three concepts: schemas,priming, and spreading activation

Schemas For any general concept, you usually associate many other ideas with that concept For

example, your concept of mother would include the idea of motivation, along with many other ideasthat you associate with your mother

Further, if that set of associations—known as a schema—becomes activated, it can alter your

perception and behavior because it would make the other associated concepts more prevalent in yourmind (e.g., activating a schema of mother made the idea of motivation more prevalent, whichinfluenced people’s perception of Mark)

Though schemas can often result in positive perceptions, such as perceived motivation, schemascan also result in negative perceptions, such as stereotypes For example, under your schema of

“Asian” is probably the idea of superior math skills Even if you don’t believe that Asians aregenuinely superior at math, the mere presence of that association is enough to influence yourperception and behavior

Researchers from Harvard conducted a clever study to test that claim (Shih, Pittinsky, & Ambady,1999) Their study was particularly clever because they used a group of people who belonged toconflicting stereotypes: Asian-American women On one hand, there’s a common stereotype thatAsians are superior at math, but on the other hand, there’s a common stereotype that females areinferior at math The researchers wanted to examine how activating those conflicting schemas couldinfluence their performance on a math test

Before giving the test, the researchers asked two groups of Asian-American women somequestions Some women were asked questions that related to their sex (e.g., if the floors in theirdorms were either co-ed or single sex) Other women, however, were asked questions that related totheir race and heritage (e.g., the languages that they knew or spoke at home) Thus, one group hadtheir schema of “female” activated, whereas the other group had their schema of “Asian” activated.You can probably guess what happened when the researchers later presented those groups with asupposedly unrelated math test

Women who were primed with their schema for Asian performed significantly better than a controlgroup (women who were asked neutral questions), and women who were primed with their schemafor female performed significantly worse than the control group Therefore, any idea that weassociate with a particular schema—even if we don’t believe in that association—can still influenceour perception and behavior if that schema becomes activated

But how does a schema become activated in the first place? The answer lies in priming

Priming Priming is the means by which you activate a schema or mindset In the previous study

about stereotypes, the “prime” was the questionnaire When people filled out the questionnaire, theirschema for either Asian or female became activated

Does that mean you need to ask people to complete a questionnaire in order to prime a schema?

Nope Luckily, there are many easier ways to prime particular schemas (though I suppose you could

ask your target to fill out a questionnaire if you really wanted to)

If not by questionnaire, how else can you prime a schema? Research shows that you can prime aschema by merely exposing people to certain words or ideas related to a particular schema Toillustrate, the next study offers a prime example (ha, get the pun?)

Using the disguise of a word-puzzle task, Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996) exposed people to

words relating to the elderly (e.g., bingo, wise, retired, Florida ) When the experiment was

supposedly over, what do you think happened when people walked out of the room? Astonishingly,compared to a control group, people walked out of the room significantly slower when they wereexposed to the elderly related words Those words primed a schema for the elderly, which thenactivated behavior that people associate with the elderly: walking slow

Not only can priming occur through subtle exposures to certain words, but priming can also beeffective when it occurs entirely outside of our conscious awareness Researchers in another studysubliminally primed people with either the logo from Apple, a company with a very creativeconnotation, or the logo from IBM, a company with a very straightforward, noncreative connotation.The logos were only shown for thirteen milliseconds, so people weren’t consciously aware that theywere exposed to those logos However, people who were flashed with Apple’s logo exhibited highercreativity than did people who were exposed to IBM’s logo (Fitzsimons, Chartrand, & Fitzsimons,2008)

How was creativity measured? After subliminally priming people with the logos, the researchersasked them to list unusual uses for a brick Yep a brick It might seem like a silly task, but peoplewho were subliminally primed with Apple’s logo generated a significantly longer list than thoseprimed with IBM’s logo Even the unusual uses themselves were judged to be more creative than theuses generated from the IBM group Therefore, priming is very effective even when it occurs outside

of our conscious awareness

Although it should be clear by now that priming a particular schema can influence our perception

and behavior, why is that the case? The answer lies in spreading activation.

Spreading Activation Our brains have a semantic network, a giant interconnected web of knowledge

containing everything that we’ve learned over time Each concept in that network, referred to as a

“node,” is connected to other concepts that are related in some aspect (the more related they are, thestronger the connection that exists between them) Due to those connections, whenever a node in oursemantic network becomes activated (via some type of prime), all other nodes that are connected

become activated as well, a principle known as spreading activation (Collins & Loftus, 1975).

Remember the lucky dwarf from the beginning of the chapter? Spreading activation can explainwhy thinking about that statement can make people more likely to choose the number seven.Essentially, the number seven is a node in our semantic network, and it has connections to othernodes For most people, a node of the number seven would have connections to things like sevendeadly sins, 7-UP soda, the Seven Wonders of the World, and an unfathomable number of otherrelated associations But why does a “lucky dwarf” activate the idea of seven? It combines two other

ideas that are heavily associated with seven: “lucky number seven” and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Due to the connections that exist between those two concepts and the number seven in our brain’ssemantic network, mentioning those concepts can trigger spreading activation When those two nodes

become activated, the activation spreads to the number seven node, which makes it more readilyavailable on a nonconscious level If you’re forced to choose the first number that pops into yourhead, you’re more likely to choose the number seven because it will come to your mind more easily.

Further, you would have been even more likely to choose the number seven if I had casuallymentioned other concepts relating to the number seven, perhaps about a “deadly sin” or lemon-limesoda Those comments would have activated more concepts connected to the node of the numberseven, which would have increased the strength of the spreading activation At the end of this chapter,I’ll describe how I accomplish some of my mind reading feats using that same principle

But first, the next section will teach you how to take advantage of schemas, priming, and spreadingactivation to prime a favorable mindset in your persuasion target (the terms “schema” and “mindset”are fairly similar, so they’ll be used interchangeably throughout this chapter)

PERSUASION STRATEGY: PRIME THEIR MINDSET

Up to this point, the chapter has explained how priming a particular schema can trigger spreading

activation This section will expand that knowledge by describing some specific schemas that would

be favorable for you to activate in your target

Prime Their Perception Our perception of the world is largely dictated by the primes in our

surrounding environment For example, experienced advertisers realize that choosing when andwhere to air a television commercial is an extremely important choice because of priming effects.When viewers watch the last scene before a commercial break, that last scene can activate a certainschema, which can then influence how people perceive the next commercial Similar to howactivating a schema of mother can influence how people perceived an ambiguous situation, certainscenes before a commercial break can activate schemas that will influence how people perceivecommercials

Consider the television show, Grey’s Anatomy Nearly every scene before a commercial break in Grey’s Anatomy ends on a depressing cliffhanger A likable main character just discovers the terrible news that she has cancer and is going to die within three months Bam! Commercial break.

Choosing to air your commercial at this exact moment would be a horrible marketing strategy(unless your product is life insurance, perhaps) For one, viewers are likely to associate theirdepressed feelings with your product because of classical conditioning (explained in Chapter 14).More broadly, however, that depressing scene will activate a schema of sadness, hopelessness, orsome other negative schema through which viewers will perceive and interpret your commercial Toavoid that negative association and detrimental schema, advertisers should avoid airing theircommercial after harmful exposures, and instead, strive to position their commercial after favorableexposures (some favorable exposures will be explained later in this section)

Priming effects occur outside of advertising as well Whether you’re giving a speech, writing aschool essay, or even showing your spouse your new haircut, we experience instances each daywhere we want our message to be perceived in the best possible light This section will explain onetype of schema that you can activate in all situations, and you’ll also learn other types of favorableschemas that you can activate depending on the situation

Standard Schema If you want to trigger a more open-minded perception in your target, why not

simply prime a schema of mindedness? In fact, exposure to words merely relating to

open-mindedness (e.g., flexible, elastic, rubber, change ) have been found to trigger more open-minded

perceptions (Hassin, 2008) Bingo!

And there’s even more good news Although it wouldn’t hurt to mention your “flexible” schedule,there’s an even simpler way to activate an open-minded schema The studies in this chapter haveshown that you can easily activate schemas by simply getting someone to think about a concept Toactivate an open-minded perception, you simply need to expose your target to an example of open-mindedness

One simple technique to activate an open-minded perception is to initiate a conversation thatrevolves around the idea of open-mindedness Perhaps a few minutes before you present yourmessage or make your request, you casually describe a story of someone who recently tried a newexperience and enjoyed it Even something as simple as the following can work:

Remember how you told me that I should start listening to the band, Mumford & Sons? I didn’tlike them at first, but I listened to them again, and I really like them now

Making a simple and innocent statement about someone acting open-mindedly can help activate yourtarget’s schema of open-mindedness, and that activation will trigger a more open-minded perception.Much like asking people to think about their mother can cause them to perceive someone as moremotivated, getting someone to think about open-mindedness will create a lens through which they willperceive things from a more open-minded perspective

And if the previous conversation starter doesn’t suit your personality or the situation, no worries!There are plenty of other conversation starters that you can use:

What are your thoughts on skydiving? My friend Sandra was petrified about going, but sherecently went, and she absolutely loved it

Do you like eggplant? My friend Bill used to hate eggplant with a passion, but he recently tried itand, it’s funny, he actually loves it now I’ve never been a huge fan of eggplant, but I guess I’llhave to try it again sometime

My company just hired a new employee Although I didn’t like him at first, I kept an open mind,and he’s finally starting to grow on me

I’m not suggesting that you should lie, but rather, you should try to think of a genuine conversationpiece that would revolve around the idea of open-mindedness The more detailed and elaborate theconversation, the stronger you activate someone’s schema for open-mindedness, which will thentrigger a more favorable perception of your message

And if you can’t think of something relating to open-mindedness, you can still take advantage of thisconcept by activating other schemas that can still be very favorable for your situation The nextsection explains some of those schemas

Other Schemas One of the great benefits about priming is its versatility Because of spreading

activation, there are plenty of other effective schemas that you can activate to make your request seemmore appealing

Suppose that you’re placing an advertisement in a magazine to promote a book that you wrote onpersuasion (pfft, who writes books on persuasion—that’s lame) When you speak with the editor orrepresentative about your ad placement, you ask her to describe a few of the article topics that willappear in the issue, and you discover that one of the articles will describe an interview conducted

with an author whose book recently became a bestseller.

As the devious persuader that you are, you decide to take advantage of the opportunity You realizethat the interview will prime magazine readers with a “bestseller” schema, and so you decide topurchase a full page ad for your book on the page immediately after the interview with the bestsellingauthor Even though readers will consciously recognize that you’re not the same author described inthe interview on the previous page, they’re likely to perceive your book more favorably because a

“bestseller” schema will have become activated As a result, you’ll persuade a larger percentage ofpeople to purchase your book than you would have persuaded by randomly choosing an ad placement

Prime Their Behavior What if, instead of perception, you wanted to trigger compliance toward a

request? In these situations that rely more on behavior, priming the concept of open-mindedness mightnot do the trick So are you out of luck? Nope You simply need to prime a different mindset

Remember how elderly-related words activated people’s schema for the elderly and caused them

to walk more slowly? Mounting research has shown that a variety of different behaviors can betriggered through priming To see the endless potential of priming, take a look at Table 1.1 to seesome interesting findings that other research as found

Similar to the previous section, this section will describe some standard schemas that you canactivate, along with a few other schemas that you can activate depending on the situation.

Standard Schemas What’s a good schema that can help you trigger compliance? You could use the

same conversation-starter technique that was described in the previous section, except you couldinitiate a conversation revolving around compliance, rather than open-mindedness A conversationabout someone complying with a request might activate your target’s schema for compliance, whichcould then trigger a certain behavior that your target associates with compliance—namely,compliance

Another standard schema that has garnered support from research is helpfulness When peoplewere exposed to words relating to helpfulness, they were more likely to help an experimenter whoaccidentally dropped items after the experiment had supposedly ended (Macrae & Johnston, 1998).And as you can see from the list of priming studies, similar effects have been found for activatingschemas of politeness (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996) and friendship (Fitzsimons & Bargh, 2003)

Finally, one last schema that you could activate in nearly any situation relates to a common socialnorm Here’s a hint: it involves an occasion that occurs once a year Give up? For centuries, the idea

of gift giving has become heavily associated with our schema for birthdays As a result, if you primesomeone’s schema for birthday, you’re likely to trigger behavior associated with gift giving

If I wanted to make a viral video, I could put the odds in my favor by using that “birthday”technique to persuade a large group of my Facebook friends to initially share the video How? Beforeposting the video to my Facebook and asking my friends to share it, I could change my profile picture

to a picture of me cutting a cake on my birthday (no matter how far back in time the picture wastaken) Exposing people to that picture would then prime their schema for birthdays, andsubsequently, the idea of gift giving Because the idea of gift giving would become activated upon thatexposure, my Facebook friends would feel greater pressure to comply with a favor, such as to share

my video Could that simple technique really cause a video to go viral? I used that exact technique

with my YouTube video, “Chat Roulette Mind Reading—Part 1,” and an astounding number of my

Facebook friends shared the video (which then went viral and reached almost a million views withinthe first week) There were obviously many other factors involved as well, but my new profilepicture definitely didn’t hurt

You should also realize that these types of priming effects often occur outside of our consciousawareness If people see the picture of me cutting my birthday cake, they don’t need to think, “Oh, is itNick’s birthday? I should probably do something nice for him by sharing his video.” In fact, they

don’t even need to consciously notice my new profile picture Much like a subliminal exposure to

Apple’s logo can trigger creative behavior, a nonconscious exposure to my birthday-related picturecan still trigger gift giving behavior People will feel greater pressure to share my video, yet theywon’t know why Oh, the beauty of priming

Other Schemas Suppose that you’re a teacher with rowdy students, and you wanted to extract better

behavior from them What could you do?

One idea is to take advantage of another social norm: being silent in a library When people in oneexperiment were primed with a picture of a library and were told that they would be visiting a

library, not only did they identify words relating to silence (e.g., silent, quiet, still, whisper) more

quickly, but they also demonstrated behavior consistent with the social norm of being in a library.Compared to people who were primed with a picture of a train station, people who were exposed to

pictures of a library spoke using a quieter voice (Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2003).

To extract better behavior from your students, you could do something similar By hanging pictures

of a library on the wall of your classroom, you can prime your students’ schema for the library, whichmight activate behavior consistent with being in a library (i.e., being quiet) Although kids can bevery difficult to persuade, if you use this strategy along with the other techniques in this book, youcould start to regain control over your classroom

The applications of priming are only limited by your imagination Whenever you’re trying topersuade someone to accept a message or comply with a request, always brainstorm a possibleschema that you can activate to put the odds further in your favor That simple technique could be theextra push that you need to secure your target’s compliance

A MIND READER’S PERSPECTIVE: HOW TO READ MINDS USING PRIMING

I started performing magic shows at a very young age, but I always hated referring to myself as amagician A “magician” always seems to bring up the image of a dorky guy in a tuxedo pulling a

rabbit out of a hat, and that type of image didn’t appeal to me (though I am a somewhat dorky guy, I

don’t own a tuxedo and I’m allergic to rabbits)

Even though I now perform as a “mind reader,” nothing that I perform is based on any sort ofsupernatural phenomenon In fact, there are only three main ways that anyone can “read minds.” Youcan either:

1 Use magic and deception (e.g., sleight of hand) to make it seem like you knew what someonewas thinking

2 Rely on body language, nonverbal behavior, and other deductive cues to guess what someone isthinking

3 Prime someone to think of a specific thought without their awareness and then proceed to “readtheir mind.”

Which method do I use? I rely mostly on the third method, but I use the first and second methods tofurther enhance the impossibility of my demonstrations

When I use the third method to nonconsciously influence people to think of something—whether it’sthe Easter Bunny, the color orange, or a dessert cake—I use subtle cues in my script to prime aparticular thought I described the demonstration with the number seven at the beginning of thechapter, but I’ll give you another example And again, go with the first answer that pops into yourhead Think of a vegetable that you might find in a garden

Are you thinking of a vegetable? Even though I was in the midst of describing how I use subtle cues

to prime a specific thought, I was actually using subtle cues to prime the thought of a carrot If youread back through this section, you’ll notice that I make specific references to things that peopleassociate with carrots—rabbits, the Easter Bunny, the color orange, a dessert cake (carrot cake).Consistent with spreading activation, those references would make your schema for “carrot” morereadily available on a nonconscious level, and when you’re forced to think quickly, your brain ismore likely to choose a carrot because of that heightened activation It’s a pretty cool phenomenon

CHAPTER 2

Anchor Their Perception

Once you mentally answer these next questions, think of your exact estimate for each question:

Is the average temperature in San Francisco greater or less than 558 degrees Fahrenheit?

Was the number of Beatles records that made the top ten greater or fewer than 100,025 records?

Is the average price of a college textbook greater or less than $7,128.53?

Did you think of your exact estimates for each question? Let me guess All of your exact estimateswere far below the suggested numbers, right? No shocker there The real shocker is that, despite thoseabsurd numbers, they still likely influenced your final estimate to be higher than it would have been ifthose anchors weren’t present (Quattrone et al., 1984) If you’re skeptical, try it on your friends; asksome people those same three questions but without the anchors There’s a good chance that theirestimate will be lower than your estimate

That psychological principle—the anchoring effect—was popularized by Amos Tversky and

Daniel Kahneman, two prolific researchers in human judgment and decision making (Tversky &Kahneman, 1974) They found that people tend to make judgments by using relative distances fromanchor points

The numeric anchors in the previous questions were essentially a type of prime because they eachactivated a certain mental image that influenced your estimates Those suggested numbers primed you

to think of a very hot day in San Francisco, a band with many records making the top ten, and a veryexpensive college textbook With those mental images activated, you were more likely to make anestimate that was consistent with those mental images

In addition to priming, however, there’s another explanation behind that phenomenon The

anchoring effect is often referred to as the anchoring and adjustment heuristic because we often

adjust our judgments in relation to some anchor point For example, when you estimated thetemperature in San Francisco after receiving an anchor point of 558 degrees Fahrenheit, you may havestarted from 558 degrees and adjusted your estimate downward until you reached an estimate that wasmore reasonable

As you’ll learn in this chapter, these adjustments (and the anchoring effect in general) can lead tosome very inaccurate and potentially harmful judgments

THE POWER OF ANCHORS

Now that you’ve read the first chapter of this book, you now have a better idea about the quality of thecontent Given what you know at this moment, how likely are you to purchase my next book? Is the

probability greater or less than 90 percent? Now, make an exact estimate of how likely you are to

purchase my next book

Do you have your estimate? Whether or not you consciously realized it, you likely started at 90percent and then adjusted your estimate upward or downward accordingly In either case, however,

your estimate is now higher than if I had asked you whether the probability was greater or less than

10 percent, a much lower anchor point

But wait When you estimated that probability, you already possessed a general understanding ofanchoring because I described it at the beginning of the chapter Wouldn’t that knowledge help youproduce a lower estimate to compensate for the 90 percent anchor that I gave? Ah, you’d think so, butunfortunately, anchoring is so powerful that we succumb to it even when we recognize its influence

Perhaps the most striking finding from research is that even deliberate warnings about anchoring gounheeded In one study, Wilson and colleagues (1996) asked people to estimate the number ofphysicians they believed would appear in a phone book, and they asked people to give their estimateafter writing down a four-digit ID number The researchers wanted to examine whether a deliberatewarning about anchoring would affect their estimation, and so they warned people how their arbitrary

ID number could influence their estimations:

A number in people’s heads can influence their answers to subsequent questions When

you answer the questions on the following pages, please be careful not to have this contamination effect happen to you We would like the most accurate estimates that you

can come up with (Wilson et al., 1996, p 397)

Surprisingly, despite that deliberate warning, people were still influenced by their arbitrary IDnumber when they estimated the number of physicians in the phone book Even when people are fullyaware of the powerful impact of anchoring, they still succumb to its influence It doesn’t get morepowerful than that!

WHY DO WE USE ANCHORS?

We already looked at two mechanisms that explain how anchoring can influence our judgments (i.e., through priming and adjustments), but this section will explain why we tend to rely on anchors to

make judgments

Produce Accurate Judgments Perhaps the main reason why we use anchoring—either consciously

or nonconsciously—is that we truly believe it leads to more accurate judgments This section willdiscuss two pieces of evidence to support that notion: (1) people who are highly motivated toproduce an accurate judgment still use anchoring, and (2) when no anchors are given, people oftengenerate their own anchors to help make their judgment

Occurs When Motivation Is High The researchers who conducted the phone book experiment

conducted another experiment where they gave people an incentive to produce accurate estimates.Participants in the experiment were told that the person with the closest estimate would receive a $50prize, but the results showed that the incentive and additional motivation made no difference—theirrelevant ID number still influenced their estimates (Wilson et al., 1996)

Not only does anchoring influence trivial judgments, such as the number of physicians in aphonebook, but it can also influence very important decisions Extensive research has applied theanchoring effect to criminal trials, and unfortunately, evidence shows that judges rely on anchors todetermine the lengths of their sentencing For instance, when legal professionals were asked to read ahypothetical shoplifting case and then decide a proper sentencing length, they were influenced by theprosecutor’s recommended length, even when they were informed that the length was chosen atrandom:

For experimental purposes, the following prosecutor’s sentencing demand was randomlydetermined, therefore, it does not reflect any judicial expertise: The prosecutor demands asentence [of] 3 months on probation (Englich, Mussweiler, & Strack, 2006, p 192)

When exposed to a 1 month demand from the defense and that 3 month demand from the prosecution,the legal experts gave an average sentence of 4 months When the 3 months from the previous excerptwas replaced by 9 months, however, legal experts gave an average sentence of 6 months Thesentencing length increased by 2 months even though the description clearly mentioned that thesuggested length was chosen at random

A 2-month difference might not seem that substantial, but research has found differences insentencing lengths that span several years (Pepitone & DiNubile, 1976), even when there is greateremphasis on the arbitrariness of the anchor, such as a recommended length that results from rolling apair of dice (Englich, Mussweiler, & Strack, 2006) Therefore, even people with high expertise—such as legal professionals—use anchors to produce their judgments It’s truly mind-boggling howone quick exposure to an irrelevant number could change someone’s life forever

We Use Self-Generated Anchors Further support for our misguided faith in anchors can be found in

our tendency to use “self-generated anchors” (Epley & Gilovich, 2006) When we’re facing asituation where no suitable anchor has been provided, we often seek our own anchor from which wecan produce our judgment (hence the term, “self-generated anchor”)

Suppose that you’re applying for a job position and you’re asked to input your desired salary (what

an aggravating question, huh?) To produce your estimate, you would likely use a three-step anchoringprocess:

1 Determine the average salary for that type of position (perhaps through personal experience or aquick Google search)

2 Judge the reputation of the hiring company (whether the company seems above or belowaverage)

3 Mentally start from the average salary and adjust your desired salary according to the reputation

of the hiring company If the company is very prestigious and reputable, you would likely adjustyour desired salary upward from the average (and vice versa)

In that scenario, the average salary is considered a “self-generated anchor” because you created thatanchor to produce your desired salary

Self-generated anchors are used in many different circumstances, not just desired salaries In onestudy, people were asked to give the freezing point of vodka—a question that most people werestumped to answer—and so they used the freezing point of water as an anchor point People whorealized that the freezing point of water was 0° Celsius realized that the freezing point of vodka must

be lower, and they adjusted their estimate according to that anchor (Epley & Gilovich, 2006)

Although anchoring can lead to more accurate judgments (such as people who used the freezing

point of water as an anchor point), it usually leads to poor judgments when we rely on the secondreason behind our use of anchors: when we use anchors to exert less mental effort

Exert Less Mental Effort By nature, humans are lazy Though we’re motivated to produce accurate

judgments, we often try to produce those judgments using the least amount of effort possible.Unfortunately, when we use anchors as a shortcut for our decision making, we usually fail to achieve

our primary goal of forming an accurate judgment.

The following are two specific types of anchoring shortcuts that we sometimes use (and whichoften lead to poor judgments)

Plausible Outcome Reached Remember when I asked you to estimate the probability of purchasing

my next book? With such a hazy question, estimating your exact probability would have been fairly

difficult Rather than pull a number from thin air, you likely generated a range of reasonable

probabilities

Let’s assume that you generated a range of 50–70 percent (which could have been produced eitherconsciously or nonconsciously) If the initial anchor point was 90 percent, you would havedetermined your exact probability by adjusting downward from 90 percent until you reached the firstplausible estimate in your range—in this case, it would have been 70 percent (the very top of yourrange of probabilities) On the flip side, if the initial anchor point was 10 percent, you would havedetermined your estimate by adjusting upward from 10 percent until you reached the first probabilitywithin your range—in this case, it would have been 50 percent (the very bottom of your range ofprobabilities) The takeaway: anchoring can produce inaccurate judgments because we often adjustfrom an anchor point until we reach the outermost estimate within a range of plausible judgments(Epley & Gilovich, 2006)

Applying that principle to courtrooms, suppose that the average sentencing length for a particularcrime ranges from 2 to 4 years If the prosecutor demands a sentence of 5 years, then the judge islikely to start from 5 years and adjust his sentence downward until he reaches the outermost sentence

of 4 years If the defense demands a sentence of 1 year, then the judge is likely to start from 1 year andadjust his sentence upward until he reaches the outermost sentence of 2 years In either case, thedifference is 2 years—a full 2 years of someone’s life would be completely dependent on an arbitrarynumber presented to the judge

Availability Heuristic Another poor use of anchoring can be found in the availability heuristic, the

tendency to evaluate the probability of an event by how easily an instance comes to our mind When

we receive an anchor, we might reflect on instances where that anchor is true, and if an instancecomes to our mind very easily, then we might falsely assume that the anchor is accurate, and so weproduce a judgment near that anchor point (Mussweiler & Strack, 2000)

In courtrooms, judges can falsely associate the ease with which a particular sentence length comes

to mind with the frequency of that sentencing If a prosecutor demands 5 years for a crime, the judgemay reflect on past cases where that same sentence was given for that crime If he can easily think of

a particular instance, then he might assume that the length of his sentence should also fall near thatanchor of 5 years

What makes this application of anchoring particularly unfortunate is that there are many reasonswhy a particular sentence would come to the judge’s mind besides the frequency of that sentence.Perhaps a 5-year sentence for a particular crime popped into his mind more easily not because of itsfrequency but because the criminal’s actions in that case were particularly atrocious and memorable

In this scenario, the 5-year sentence would be longer than the average length for that crime, but thejudge would falsely believe that it’s an average length Due to this unfortunate circumstance, peoplewho commit a minor crime might receive a much longer sentence than they deserve because of thatmistaken judgment

WHAT DETERMINES THE DIRECTION OF ADJUSTMENT?

This chapter has mainly focused on assimilation: judgments have mostly adjusted toward a provided anchor However, anchoring can also produce contrast effects: judgments can also adjust away from

a provided anchor To experience a contrast effect, look at the following optical illusion, known asthe Ebbinghaus illusion:

Which circle is larger: A or B? Circle A is larger, right? It seems that way, but both circles are

actually the same size This optical illusion demonstrates a contrast effect, the tendency to perceive a

stimulus differently depending on the surrounding stimuli When you judged the size of A and B, your

perception was anchored by the surrounding circles: the smaller circles around Circle A caused you

to perceive a larger relative size, whereas the larger circles surrounding Circle B caused you to

perceive a smaller relative size This difference in perception is often referred to as perceptual contrast.

Contrast effects influence our perception not only with arbitrary circles but with many differenttypes of stimuli each day, including our perception of other people’s attractiveness For example,

researchers showed men a picture of a female after the men had watched Charlie’s Angels —a

television show from the 1970s with three very attractive females as the main characters Compared

to a control group, men who had been watching Charlie’s Angels rated the female in the picture to be

less attractive because the television show created a contrast effect (Kenrick & Gutierres, 1989).Like assimilation, contrast effects alter our perception on a daily basis without our awareness Forexample, these effects can influence whether you choose to eat an unhealthy meal or an organic fruitsalad To demonstrate, estimate the calorie content in a typical cheeseburger Keep that exact estimate

in the back of your mind because we’ll return to it in a second

But now that you understand the difference between assimilation (adjusting toward anchors) and contrast effects (adjusting away from anchors), what determines those directions? When do we adjust

toward an anchor, and when do we adjust away from an anchor? One main factor involves theextremity of an anchor When someone is forming a judgment, an anchor that is very extreme willtrigger a contrast effect

Do you recall your estimate of the calorie content in a typical cheeseburger? If you were to askother people that same question, their estimate would likely be lower than yours Why? Immediatelybefore I asked you to estimate, I subtly mentioned an organic fruit salad Although you might not haverealized it, that cue became an extreme anchor point that influenced you to perceive a cheeseburger ashaving more calories

A recent study confirmed that same outcome (Chernev, 2011) People who were primed to think of

“an organic fruit salad” (an anchor point that’s positioned on the extreme low end of the calorie spectrum) adjusted their calorie estimate of a subsequent cheeseburger away from the low end

because that extreme anchor point made the calorie difference seem more pronounced In a sense, thevery healthy fruit salad became one of the smaller surrounding circles in the optical illusion, whichcaused you to perceive a large number of calories in a cheeseburger Conversely, people who were

primed to think of a “decadent cheesecake” (an anchor point that’s positioned on the extreme high end

of the calorie spectrum) adjusted their calorie estimate of a cheeseburger away from the high end The

cheeseburger became the seemingly smaller Circle B because the very unhealthy cheesecake made thenumber of calories in a cheeseburger seem fewer

This chapter described how assimilation toward an arbitrary prison sentence length can alter aperson’s life, and unfortunately, contrast effects are no different When judges evaluate a homicidecase (an anchor that lies on the egregious end of the crime spectrum), they tend to perceive subsequentcases to be less severe If an assault case is presented immediately following a homicide case, thejudge tends to issue sentences that are shorter than the average length for assaults because ofperceptual contrast Likewise, a homicide that is judged after an assault case is perceived to be moresevere, and the judge tends to issue a sentence that is longer than average (Pepitone & DiNubile,1976)

Before continuing, you should realize that contrast effects occur only with semantic categories(e.g., types of food, types of crime) The good news is that nearly all numeric anchors causeassimilation Much like how people give higher estimates of Gandhi’s age when they’re asked if he

was younger or older than 140 (Strack & Mussweiler, 1997), any number that you present to your

target—whether that number is relevant, arbitrary, or absurdly extreme—will cause people to adjust

their judgment toward that number.

PERSUASION STRATEGY: ANCHOR THEIR PERCEPTION

There are plenty of instances where providing an anchor could boost your persuasion Perhaps you’re

a salesperson sending an e-mail to customers asking if they want to reorder your products; why notoffer a numeric anchor that’s higher than average? That higher number would become an anchor pointthat your customers would assimilate toward, leading to a larger purchase than they would typicallybuy

But besides those basic anchoring strategies, there are many other persuasion applications thataren’t so obvious This section will explain some clever strategies to give you an idea of the sheerpotential of anchoring

Present a Decoy As Dan Ariely (2009) describes in Predictably Irrational, the options that you

present to your target can become anchor points that people use to compare the other options Imaginethat you’re deciding between two subscriptions to a magazine:

Product A: Online subscription for $59.

Product B: Online and print subscription for $125.

When presented with those options, 68 percent of students chose the online subscription and 32percent chose the online and print subscription, a distribution that resulted in $8,012 of revenue

But something fascinating happened when a new subscription option was added Take a look at theproduct marked as “B–” (to imply that the product is similar to Product B, yet worse in one aspect):

Product A: Online subscription for $59.

Product B–: Print subscription for $125.

Product B: Online and print subscription for $125.

If you present those options to people, you’d be hard-pressed to find even one person who wouldchoose Product B– Why would you choose a print only subscription when you could choose the

online and print for the same price?

And your intuitive judgment would be correct; when that new option was given to a sample ofstudents, not one person chose it Nevertheless, its mere presence drastically changed the outcomeand increased revenue from $8,012 to $11,444 Why? The percentage of people choosing the onlineonly subscription dropped from 68 percent to 16 percent, whereas the percentage of people choosingthe online and print subscription (a more expensive option) increased from 32 percent to 84 percent

Due to contrast effects, Product B became a seemingly better option because people could compare

it to Product B–, a clearly worse option Because there was no equivalent product to which Product

A could be compared, people were more likely to choose Product B because they perceived it to bethe best option

When people are undecided between two different options, you can influence them to choose aparticular option by adding a new option that is similar to one, but either better or worse in some

aspect When you add that similar option into the mix, you give people an anchor that they can use tojudge the existing similar option If the new option is better, then the new option is perceived as theclear winner, but if the new option is worse, then the already existing similar option becomes theclear winner.

To apply this “decoy effect” toward your business, suppose that you’re selling consulting services

It might be favorable for you to offer three options: one option that is priced low, one option that ispriced moderately, and one option that is priced extremely high The very high priced option willconvert more people from the low priced option to the moderately priced option, helping to generatemore overall revenue for your business (Huber, Payne, & Puto, 1982)

Even if you’re not selling products, you could apply the decoy effect toward minuscule lifemoments, such as influencing your friends to eat at a particular restaurant Suppose that you’re arguingwith your friends about where to eat Some are arguing for a particular Mexican restaurant, whereasyou and a few others are pulling for a particular Chinese restaurant If you know that your friendsdislike another particular Chinese restaurant, you could put the odds in your favor by throwing thatoption into the mix Because that option is similar to yours but worse in some respect, you trigger acontrast effect that will make your existing Chinese restaurant seem even better

Door-in-the-Face Technique To help spread the word about my book to other people, would you

mind purchasing additional copies to give to your friends or coworkers? What? You don’t want to dothat? Alright, well, would you mind just purchasing a copy of my next book for yourself?

The previous paragraph illustrates the door-in-the-face technique, the strategy of asking for a very

large request and then following with a much smaller request A large favor can trigger a contrasteffect that can make another favor seem even smaller, which can help you garner higher rates ofcompliance with that separate request

In the original study that examined this technique, Robert Cialdini and his colleagues (1975) askedrandom college students to volunteer at a juvenile delinquency center for two hours each week overthe next two years You can probably guess what happened Everyone immediately jumped at theincredible opportunity, right? Not quite As expected, nearly everyone politely turned down that largerequest

But something interesting happened when the researchers followed that large request with asmaller request: to take the juvenile delinquents on a two-hour trip to the zoo Without that initial

large request, only 17 percent of people agreed to the zoo trip, but when that initial large request was

presented (and rejected), compliance for the zoo trip request nearly tripled to 50 percent The largerequest created an anchor from which people could judge the size of the zoo trip With such a largeanchor established, the zoo trip was perceived to be much smaller, thereby leading to a higher rate ofcompliance

Convey High Expectations Although I might be biased, I truly believe that this book is very

informative, helpful, and interesting I’d even go so far as to say that you’ll rate it a 10 out of 10

The two previous strategies in this chapter (i.e., presenting a decoy and the door-in-the-facetechnique) involved contrast effects; there wasn’t any “assimilation” toward an anchor point

However, one strategy that does involve our tendency to adjust our judgment toward an anchor point

involves conveying the appropriate expectations, such as the suggestion that you’ll rate this book a 10out of 10

How can you apply this strategy in your own life? Suppose that you’re submitting an essay to yourprofessor, and your professor asks you how you think it turned out What would you say? To secure

the highest grade possible, you could take advantage of anchoring by making a joke that you think yourpaper is “worthy of an A.” On the surface, it seems like an innocent remark But as the deviouspersuasion mastermind you are, you realize that mentioning an “A” establishes an anchor point thatyour professor will use when grading your paper With his perception anchored toward the high end

of the grading scale, his grade will likely be higher than if he didn’t receive that anchor point If legalexperts with thirty years of experience are influenced by anchoring, there’s no reason why professorswould be any different

Conveying high expectations can be an extremely powerful persuasion tool for many reasons Thisstrategy is so powerful that I devoted the next chapter to it

A MIND READER’S PERSPECTIVE: HOW I USE

ANCHORING IN A $100 DEMONSTRATION

In the opening demonstration of my mind reading show, I play a game where one of three volunteerscan win one hundred dollars (and unbeknownst to the audience, I use anchoring to put the odds in myfavor)

Hanging from my table are four envelopes (each are labeled “1”, “2”, “3”, and “4”, respectively),and I explain that one of those envelopes contains a one hundred dollar bill I bring three volunteers

on stage and ask each of them to choose an envelope, and I explain that if they choose the envelopewith the money, then they can keep it When I ask the first volunteer to choose an envelope, I say:

I’ve performed this demonstration many times on stage And for the last five times that I’ve performed it, the money has been in envelope number three Now why am I telling you that? Am I trying to influence you to pick envelope number three, or am I trying to use reverse psychology to try to nudge you toward a different envelope?

Except for a few very rare cases, the volunteer in this scenario usually chooses the second envelope.Why? Ask a friend to think of a number between one and four Chances are high that the person willchoose two or three (with the number three being chosen more often) People very rarely choose one

or four because they stick out too much (and not to mention that you subtly imply that they shouldchoose a number “between” one and four)

But why do volunteers choose envelope two, and not envelope three? If you notice, my scriptingdiscourages people from choosing the third envelope because I bring the volunteer’s attention to it

By outwardly mentioning that the money has frequently been in the third envelope, people no longerfeel comfortable selecting it; if they choose the third envelope, they’ll appear gullible in the eyes ofthe audience (a perception that they try to avoid) Because people still feel compelled to choose anoption from the middle, they pick the only remaining option in the middle: envelope number two

After the first volunteer chooses the second envelope, I proceed to the next volunteer Because thefirst volunteer didn’t select the third envelope (despite my claim that the money has frequently been inthat envelope), this second volunteer now feels greater pressure to select the third envelope If hedoesn’t select it, then the third volunteer may not select it either If I ended up with the money fromenvelope number three, then all of the volunteers would seem stupid, a perception that the secondvolunteer avoids by selecting envelope number three

At this point, I’ve eliminated envelopes two and three from the equation, and now I just need toinfluence the third volunteer’s choice of envelope In fact, I’ve already subtly influenced him tochoose envelope number four Can you think of why? Here’s a hint: it has to do with anchoring

In the excerpt from my script, I mentioned that the money has been in the third envelope for the last

“five” demonstrations (and I consistently remind the audience of that) Therefore, the last volunteer ismore likely to choose envelope number four because I set a nonconscious anchor that was higher thanthe two remaining choices When the final volunteer must choose between one and four, she is likely

to start at the anchor of “five” and adjust downward until she reaches the first plausible choice (i.e.,envelope four)

Feel free to try this demonstration with your friends but do not try this demonstration with real

money Psychological tactics are never foolproof, and so I always have multiple backup plans in mydemonstrations in case the psychology doesn’t pan out the way it should (which can often happen)

CHAPTER 3

Convey High Expectations

You’re walking through a subway station, and you walk past a violinist You casually listen to him asyou walk by, but you continue toward your destination without skipping a beat Nothing really fazesyou

Now fast forward two weeks Your friend just gave you a generous birthday gift: two expensivetickets to a world famous violinist Although you’ve never heard of him, you’re very excited towitness one of the greatest musicians in the world

The night of the concert finally arrives, and you’re seated in the theater, anxiously waiting for theperformance to start The violinist steps on to the stage, and the concert begins As soon as he startsplaying, you’re blown away You’ve never been exposed to a quality violin performance, and soyou’re truly captivated by the musician’s talent By the end of the night, you’re brought to tears, andyou give him a standing ovation for one of the best performances that you’ve ever witnessed

Quiz time What was the difference between the first violinist in the subway station and theviolinist at the concert? The musician in the subway station was only half-decent, and the musician atthe concert was among the best in the world, right? What if the world famous violinist was the sameperson who was playing in the subway station? Surely, you still would have noticed the beauty andtalent of his performance, right?

On January 12 of 2007, a violinist played for 45 minutes in the L’Enfant Plaza subway station inWashington DC During those 45 minutes, a few people stopped to donate a couple dollars, butnothing happened that was out of the ordinary Nearly everyone walked by at their usual pace withoutstopping to listen or pay attention Why is that surprising? The violinist, Joshua Bell, is one of thegreatest violinists in the world Two days prior to his performance in the subway station, Bellperformed at a sold-out theater in Boston where tickets cost roughly $100 per seat It was reportedthat he even purchased his violin at a staggering price of $3.5 million Needless to say, Bell isconsidered one of the greatest musicians in the world

Why were people unfazed by his performance in the subway station? Why did most people simplywalk by without stopping to listen to his incredible music? Is it really possible for someone to beblown away by Bell’s performance at a theater yet remain completely unfazed by him in a subwaystation? After reading this chapter, you’ll understand why that outcome is very possible Theexplanation behind that surprising phenomenon relates to our expectations and how they mold ourperception of the world

THE POWER OF EXPECTATIONS

Similar to mindsets, our expectations largely dictate our perception of the world Whenever wedevelop expectations for a certain event, our brain often molds our perception of that event to matchour expectations We see what we expect to see We hear what we expect to hear We feel what weexpect to feel

Placebo effects are a clear example of that concept When researchers test a new drug on patients,

they give some people the actual drug, and they give other people a fake version of the drug (i.e., aplacebo) that produces no effect This procedure is needed because our expectations can often dictatethe outcome of treatments We usually show signs of improvement after receiving a placebo merely

because we expect to show signs of improvement.

Although placebo effects are typically associated with testing new antibiotics, your expectationsinfluence you every day Do you prefer Coke or Pepsi? Recent research has revealed some interestingfindings in that choice Because Coke is the dominant brand, most people have developed the

expectation that Coke tastes better, and research confirms that people do prefer Coke over Pepsi in

non-blind taste tests (i.e., when people know which drink they’re consuming) But an interestingphenomenon occurs when the taste tests are blind When people aren’t told which drink they’reconsuming—an event that eliminates expectations from the equation—more people prefer the taste ofPepsi (McClure et al., 2004)

Perhaps even more interesting is that this “Pepsi Paradox” is completely eliminated for peoplewith damage to their ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with emotion.People with this brain damage prefer the taste of Pepsi, even when they know which drink they’reconsuming, because they’re not susceptible to the emotional expectations stemming from thepopularity of Coke (Koenigs & Tranel, 2008)

When our brains are healthy, high expectations can lead to more neural activity in the brain regionassociated with pleasantness A group of researchers studied neural activity in people when theydrank wine that was marked at various price points, and even though they used the same wine in eachcondition, the wine that was marked at higher price points had sparked more neural activity in theorbitofrontal cortex, the brain region associated with pleasantness (Plassman et al., 2008) People

found the taste of wine more pleasing when they merely believed it was purchased at a higher price.

Therefore, expectations are very powerful because they can mold our perception, even from abiological perspective

Not only can expectations mold our perception, but they can also influence our behavior In anotherexperiment, some people purchased an energy drink at a full price of $1.89, whereas other peoplepurchased the same energy drink at a discount price of $.89 The researchers wanted to examinewhether people’s knowledge of the drink’s price would influence their performance on a mental task,and the results were pretty enlightening People who purchased the drink at full price performedsignificantly better than people who purchased the drink at a discount, even though the drink wasexactly the same in each condition (Shiv, Carmon, & Ariely, 2005) People who purchased the drink

at full price developed higher expectations for the drink’s effectiveness, thereby causing them toperform better on the mental task, whereas people who purchased the drink at a discount developedlower expectations, causing them to perform worse on the mental task Even something as innocent asthe price of an energy drink can convey certain expectations, which can then influence our perceptionand behavior

WHY ARE EXPECTATIONS SO POWERFUL?

Why are expectations so powerful? One potential explanation lies in anchoring Much like we adjust

from an anchor point toward a range of plausible estimations (e.g., a 50–70 percent likelihood of

purchasing my next book), we also seem to adjust toward a range of plausible expectations Forexample, when you purchased this book, it would be impossible to know exactly how good it would

be, so you likely developed a range of expectations

Now, suppose that before you read this book, your friend told you that it was the best book thathe’s ever read, thereby setting an anchor point on the high end of an expectation spectrum When youactually read the book, you might adjust downward from that anchor point until you reach theoutermost point of your original range, which would naturally be near the high end On the other hand,

if you received an anchor point that was lower than your range, you may adjust upward from thatanchor until you reach the outermost bottom of that range In either case, your expectations—high orlow—acted like an anchor point that molded your perception

Similarly, because extreme anchors can produce contrast effects, expectations can also backfire ifthey’re too extreme If your friend mentioned that this book was so good that it could spur a newreligion or bring about the destruction of the entire world, then those expectations would likelyproduce a contrast effect and worsen your actual opinion of the book

Nonetheless, research shows that conveying high (yet believable) expectations will usually leadsomeone to perceive an event to match those expectations In addition to an anchoring mechanism,there are a few other principles that can explain why expectations are so powerful in certainsituations

Confirmation Bias First, our expectations can mold our perception because of confirmation bias,

which is the natural tendency for people to seek information to confirm their beliefs or expectations(Nickerson, 1998)

Suppose that you believe in global warming, yet you’re trying to make an unbiased decisionregarding whether or not it actually exists If you wanted to research the subject more thoroughly, youmight turn to Google and search “the effects of global warming.” Woops You’ve already fallen prey

to confirmation bias because those search terms subtly acknowledge the existence of global warming.Most of the search results that appear will explain the effects that global warming can produce,

thereby leading you to a biased conclusion that global warming does exist.

We feel a strong desire to confirm our expectations because it feels upsetting when informationdisconfirms our expectations Like most people, you probably cringe whenever you hear a recording

of your own voice The voice projecting from that device sounds so foreign that it can’t possibly beyour voice But wait Is your distaste resulting from a poor recording device or is your distasteresulting from your expectations?

When we speak, our brain hears a voice that’s different from the voice that other people hear.When we project our voice, the muscles that produce our speech cause a vibration that runs from ourneck to our brain’s auditory mechanisms, and those vibrations internally distort our voice Becausethose vibrations occur internally, other people (including voice recorders) hear your voice withoutthose distortions—i.e., your true external voice Over time, you become so familiar with yourinternally distorted voice that when you hear your true voice from a recorder, your voice sounds verydifferent, and those incongruent expectations are the culprit behind your distaste toward the sound ofyour voice The best way to develop an appreciation for your voice is to become accustomed to theway it truly sounds People with a background in voice work (e.g., radio hosts) eventually grow toenjoy the sound of their voice because the frequent exposure helps them develop the appropriateexpectations

How do we overcome incongruent expectations in other situations? One popular technique is

selective avoidance: we simply ignore information that disconfirms our expectations Oftentimes, our

brains can be a mystery In fact, read the following statement:

OUR

BRAINS CAN BE A

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies In all of the previous explanations—anchoring, confirmation bias, and

selective avoidance—the objective reality of an event never changed The only thing that changedwas our interpretation However, our expectations can also change the objective reality

Suppose that your friend Debbie is introducing you to her friend Emily Before you meet Emily,Debbie describes her as cold, standoffish, and unfriendly, which causes you to develop theexpectation that you won’t get along with her And upon meeting Emily, you find that your expectation

is met: her personality seems very distant and unapproachable, and you can’t seem to connect withher When the conversation ends, you leave with no future intention of interacting with Emily againbecause of her unfriendly demeanor

But let’s backtrack for a second Rather than Debbie describing Emily as cold and unapproachable,suppose that she described her as friendly, kind, and light-hearted This description would cause you

to develop a completely different set of expectations about Emily’s personality Upon meeting herwith those new expectations, you instead find that her personality is very warm, fun, and energetic.When the conversation ends, you leave with high hopes of interacting with her again

Assuming that Emily was the same person in each scenario, were those outcomes due to yourperception of Emily, or were they due to Emily’s actual behavior toward you? Trick question Both

your perception and Emily’s actual behavior changed because of your expectations.

Remember the opening anecdote with the violinist? In that situation, only your perception wasinfluenced You weren’t interacting with the violinist, so your expectations didn’t influence him or hismusical abilities in any way His musical abilities in the subway station and at the expensive concertwere exactly the same; the difference in your perception occurred solely through your interpretation

In the situation with Emily, however, you did interact with her, and so you were able to influence

her reaction and behavior toward you More importantly, your initial behavior toward Emily largelyresulted from your expectations When Debbie described her as cold and unapproachable, yourexpectations of Emily’s unfriendly attitude caused you to act in a negative fashion toward her IfEmily was an unfriendly person, why should you make an effort to extend a positive attitude toward

her? Thus, it was you, not Emily, who became the first person to exude an unfriendly demeanor As a result of your negative attitude, Emily reacted in a similar negative fashion (a typical response of any

normal human being) When Emily matched your unfriendly demeanor, you misinterpreted thatbehavior as emerging solely from her From your perspective, you were acting like your normal self,and it was Emily who was acting unfriendly

On the flip side, when you discovered that Emily’s personality was fun and lighthearted, you wereexcited to meet her When conversing with Emily, your personality was upbeat and energetic because

you expected that you would get along with her As a result of your friendly demeanor, Emily then

acted in a similar fashion and extended a positive attitude toward you

The previous illustration can be explained by a self-fulfilling prophecy (Rist, 1970) Our

expectations for an event are often met because they can cause us to behave in ways that lead to theexpected outcome, such as in the previous illustration with Emily Even if your expectations are false

or inaccurate, those expectations can alter your behavior in a way that will cause the expectedoutcome to occur, hence the term “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

We’re usually guided by self-fulfilling prophecies every day without realizing it Imagine thatyou’re studying for an exam If you expect to perform poorly, you might trigger a self-fulfillingprophecy and fail the exam because you’ll engage in behaviors to fulfill your expectations (e.g., notstudying) Why would you bother studying if you’re just going to fail anyway? Studying would beuseless However, if you expect to perform well on the exam, you’ll be more likely to engage inbehavior to fulfill those hopeful expectations, namely by studying more and doing the proper things tohelp you pass the exam (e.g., eating well, getting enough sleep, etc.)

Hopefully my high expectations for this book have me helped write a book that you find interestingand informative While writing this book, I developed the expectation that this book was going to be

great, and though I can’t be the one to judge, I can tell you that I’ve been spending nearly 15 hours

every day for the past few months slaving over this book My expectations were so high that I evenquit my consulting job to finish writing it, and I’ve been surviving on a ramen noodle diet for the pastfew months so that I could afford to finish it If my expectations were low, I wouldn’t be pushingmyself to the brink of mental and physical exhaustion to write this book

Why did I just reveal that to you? You should know the answer by now: to convey highexpectations for this book, of course

PERSUASION STRATEGY: CONVEY HIGH EXPECTATIONS

If you want people to perceive something more favorably, you should convey high expectationsbecause those expectations will become a lens that will mold their perception Although that’s a clearimplication from this chapter, this section will explain another key facet of that strategy

First Impressions Quick Take five seconds to estimate the value of the following equation:

1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8Now that you have your answer, do you think that your answer would have been different if instead Iasked you to calculate the following equation:

8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1Both equations are essentially the same; the only difference is the order of the numbers Because bothequations produce the same results, it’s safe to assume that your guess would have been the same,

right? Au contraire Research shows that your guess would have been very different if I asked you to

estimate the second equation instead of the first

Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman (1973) conducted that study and found that people who wereshown the first equation estimated a median of 512, and people who were shown the second equationestimated a median of 2,250

Logic and rationale suggest that people’s answers should have been the same, so what sparked that

difference? The answer can be found in the primacy effect, which describes how information

presented earlier in a sequence can produce a greater impact than information presented later in asequence (Murdock, 1962) You can think of the primacy effect as a type of anchor Those initialnumbers set a specific anchor (either high or low depending on the equation), which influencedpeople’s estimates

To understand how that relates to expectations, consider an experiment where two groups ofpeople were told that they would soon interact with another person The first group learned that thisperson was “intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and envious,” whereas the secondgroup received that same information in the reverse order (i.e., “envious, stubborn, critical,impulsive, industrious, and intelligent”) Therefore, both groups received the same information,except the first group received the information with positive traits appearing first, and the secondgroup received the information with negative traits appearing first

Now that you understand the primacy effect, you can probably guess what happened The group thatwas exposed to the initial positive traits had developed a much more favorable impression of theperson with whom they interacted (Asch, 1946) Those initial traits molded participants’ expectationsfor the remainder of the information in that sequence Once they formed that initial impression, theydevoted less attention to the remainder of the sequence because they assumed that their initialimpression was accurate enough

What’s the practical takeaway? First impressions are absolutely critical People’s initial exposure

to your message will mold their perception for the remainder of your message In order to maximizeyour persuasion, you need to create a strong initial impression so that you convey high expectationsfor the rest of your message As you’ll learn in Chapter 11, this principle applies whenever yousequence multiple forms of justification, such as supporting arguments in a school essay or businessproposal

A HYPNOTIST’S PERSPECTIVE: WHY HIGH

EXPECTATIONS CAN MAKE SOMEONE A SUPERB

HYPNOSIS SUBJECT

In addition to possessing a strong background as a mind reader, I also have a background in hypnosis.However, I choose not to perform hypnosis for entertainment because I don’t want to tarnish people’sperception of it While hypnosis can be very entertaining, people often develop misconceptions about

it because they only know it through the lens of entertainment In reality, hypnosis is a very powerfulclinical technique that can treat a wide range of conditions and habits (some common uses aresmoking cessation and weight loss)

Nonetheless, one interesting facet about hypnosis is that expectations largely determine the extentthat someone can be hypnotized To understand that notion, you should first know that nearly everysingle person can be hypnotized More importantly, research has found that there are very few distinct

characteristics of people who are highly hypnotizable In other words, the types of people that can easily be hypnotized can possess a wide range of personality traits; there is not one type of

Oakley, 2005) Therefore, to successfully hypnotize someone, you need to convey the expectation that

you can hypnotize them.

I still remember the first person that I ever tried to hypnotize My friend desperately wanted to quitsmoking, and I really wanted to help him I had been studying hypnosis at the time, so I decided to put

my knowledge to the first official test Even though my inside thoughts were still somewhat skeptical

of hypnosis (I honestly didn’t think that it would work), I recognized that I should still convey theappropriate expectations

Rather than outwardly state my skepticism, I projected a fake air of confidence to assure my friendthat it would work My friend witnessed my confidence and assurance in the hypnosis, and he thenbecame more confident and assured in my ability to hypnotize him As a result of his heightenedexpectations, I was able to guide him into a deep state of hypnosis, and after 10 minutes of giving him

a few helpful suggestions toward his smoking habit, I guided him out of hypnosis, and he’s beensmoke-free to this day

From that moment, I started conveying the same expectations for everyone else that I hypnotize,even to this day If I’m hypnotizing someone that I just met, after 5 to 10 minutes of speaking with him,

I smile and say, “It’s funny You seem like a very hypnotizable person You seem like someone whocould easily go into a deep state of hypnosis That’s a great quality to have.” Because many peoplehave doubts about their ability to be hypnotized (often because of how it’s portrayed on stage), thatstatement removes any mental defenses that the person may possess, and it reinforces their

expectations that they will be hypnotized In turn, that makes it easier for me to guide them into a deep

state of hypnosis

Although I learned hypnosis mainly by studying the academic research on the subject, I recommendseeking proper training if you’re interested in learning it Hypnotherapy training is offered throughoutthe country and probably near your location Hypnosis is a fantastic skill to possess, but because itcan be very powerful, you should seek proper training if you’re interested in learning it

REAL WORLD APPLICATION: THE FAMILY VACATION

(PART 1)

At the end of each step in METHODS, I’ll present a “Real World Application” to demonstrate howyou can begin implementing that step into daily scenarios In this first application, you want yourfamily to take a vacation in a few months, but you expect to encounter some resistance from yourbudget-concerned husband You know that your family has enough money saved, so you decide toimplement a few tactics to make him more open-minded

Considering your seven-year-old daughter, Mackenzie, you decide that a small trip to Disneylandwould not only give her a great memory, but it would also be an affordable vacation compared to aworldwide alternative In order to make your husband more open to that idea, you plan to anchor hisperception by gathering travel information for two potential vacations: (1) a very expensive vacationaround the world, and (2) the trip to Disneyland on which you have your heart set

You know that your budget-concerned husband would never go for the first option, so you plan topresent that decoy to set an absurdly high anchor point When you present the second vacation option(the trip to Disneyland), a contrast effect will make this vacation seem much smaller because of yourhusband’s newly anchored perception

He gets home from work one day, and you put that plan into action But before you bring up the ideaabout taking a family vacation, you put the odds further in your favor by mentioning that Mackenziehas been starting to eat vegetables—a food that she’s always disliked With this conversationinvolving Mackenzie’s open-mindedness, you hope to activate your husband’s schema for open-mindedness so that he will temporarily develop a more open-minded perception

As you transition from that conversation into the idea about taking a vacation (e.g., “Speaking ofMackenzie ”), you present the very expensive vacation option, which he immediately rejects, asexpected But with his perception attached to that high anchor point, you then present the secondoption about the trip to Disneyland With an intense look of contemplation, he mentions that he’s onthe fence and that he’ll need time to think about it

Darn It wasn’t the response that you wanted, but don’t worry This book will explain an enormousnumber of additional persuasion tactics that you can use to crack your husband’s closed-mindedness.We’ll revisit this scenario later, and I’ll explain how you can incorporate other persuasion tactics togarner his compliance

STEP 2

Elicit Congruent Attitudes